Do Robots Die
by DLN-000
Summary: He realized maybe he shouldn't have asked that question in the first place. His brother, however, does not regret his promise.


Hello Mega/Rock Man fandom, it's a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can be good friends, so here's my first story to show. It was written in a way that I'm not too fond of and it might be a bit repetitive at some points, especially since overall the characters aren't named (but I'm sure you'll manage to figure out who is who without too much struggle). Just on a note I guess, I wrote this at somewhere between 2 and 4 AM a few days ago, and I originally had done it on a much flatter format. Later I added a whole lot more to it, once I'd gotten a decent sleep and taken a certain liking to it.

As the title alludes someone gets finished off around the end,_ ohhh_. None of this is canon obviously. There's a lot of what ifs and thoughts put into it. But, regardless, you can probably find some other way of enjoying it, as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Anyway, let's get on with it before I blabber any more. (There isn't an ending author's note for you to have to endure this time, so _good luck_!)

* * *

**Do Robots Die  
**_It turns out some things are better left unspoken, but told anyway_

It all begins with a question, that he asks himself, and then can't help but ask another. It all starts with a promise, that he misses completely when it's first made to him, but carries with him somehow, until the day it's fulfilled before his eyes.

"Do robots die?" He asks just like that, on a day perfectly alike any other. There is nothing particularly on his mind that day, but the question comes regardless, as suddenly and unexpectedly to him as it does to the brother standing in front of him.

"What do you mean?" Although his brother doesn't have the faintest idea of what to respond with, he keeps it hidden by creating a question of his own, as unwilling as always to admit that there are things that would drive even someone such as himself crazy in the attempt of uncovering the truth behind them.

"Do you think robots die? Do you think they die… a bit like how people do?" He changes his approach a bit this time, but the inquiry remains overall pretty much the same. There is a look in his face, that tells his brother that he does not truly expect his thirst for that particular bit of knowledge to be quenched as easily, but will persist with it anyway, because he is young and naïve and generally curious about things.

So he avoids the question again, and unconsciously adverts his eyes away from his smaller brother's face, even though they'd hidden behind concrete black shadows that keep everyone from seeing them.

"Do you think they do?" His brother's words are firm, but they are more of a desperate attempt to hold onto solid ground in the sea of incognito that has forced its way into his mind than the wise challenge that he makes it out to seem.

He has to think for a bit before answering that, but between the short seconds in between he finds it all much easier than his older sibling has since he first spoke up.

"I'm not sure," Is how he begins to admit. "I'd like to find out someday. But I don't want to die myself, of course –oh but I don't want others to die either! No, that isn't it at all. It's more like… well…" He ends it off by pretending to trail off, but in truth he wasn't sure what else he could have said at all.

Now it is his brother whose turn is to hesitate. There's a thing he wants to say, prickling at the tip of his tongue like he's burnt it quite recently. But he has to hold himself back from spilling any more emotion than necessary when he utters it, which isn't much, because he barely ever speaks with evident feeling anyway.

"One day you will know." It's almost a whisper that passes his lips, but he tries to put strength into it regardless, to make sure the other doesn't have a chance to miss how serious he is speaking.

"How do you know?" His brother would have liked more than anything to end that conversation right there, but the boy in blue doesn't waste time in retorting, his face starting to look more and more like its usual self. It reassures the bigger individual significantly, but his responses from then on do not stop coming with an air of definite difficulty that he keeps strictly to himself.

"I just do. Now don't waste your time wondering about it. It will come when it does," His brother speaks more fiercely this time, hoping it will finally finish off this discussion that has made him so unnaturally edgy and preoccupied. He feels like there's a metal drill scratching at his insides, filling the holes left behind with anxiety and gripping fear; but he ignores it, and goes on standing straight and still, for the better of the child before him.

This does seem to satisfy the short hero, and nothing more comes from him, besides a quick nod and a smile worth a million sunrises. His brother is sure with it, he can fulfill the promise he has just made. He doesn't know, but he's just vowed in the back of his mind, to what he knows someday will come.

And that was the only warning that the blue warrior ever received.

* * *

It's late into the year when he realizes he has to go out to fight again. It's the same man as always, with his usual, megalomaniac plans to destroy precious things without the slightest care for other's feelings regarding them. It's was his first duty at birth to be a machine that could think and reason with free will, develop memories, bonds, and emotions, but later he was entrusted with the further task of serving as a protector of peace and oppose of evil as well. He doesn't ever complain about it, because becoming that was also an honest decision he made, a long, long time ago it seems.

So he says goodbye to his father and to his sister too. They both know he will be back soon, and that there is nothing out there that could possibly stop him from defeating the antagonist doctor and returning safely home shortly afterwards. His best canine friend is coming with and his bird companion as well, but only when he calls to them in summon of their assistance, so for now they stay put. He waves goodbye to the other doctor and her Russian daughter on the monitor before he leaves, and then he sees his brother waiting for him outside.

His brother knows he has to go too of course, and has no intention of stopping him. He is simply here to bid him farewell, and wish him good luck, although it is him who is usually running around everywhere and leaving on short notice quickly after he had first made his appearance.

The red brother nods, and disappears with the next surge of wind. He just smiles and turns back towards the lab. He has a long way to go once he's teleported for the first time, and he knows that he must expect to mostly undertake it alone. Such is his fate.

His brother is never left behind like his father and sister are tough. He is always moving as his shadow, watching over him with mixed feelings that bring out the most of his human traits. He can feel an extra shadow hanging over him today however, and he can feel it looming like there's someone else chasing after him this time. But there's no one there, and he's sure because his sensory system is flawless in every way. So it must just be the clouds that are grouping in the sky above head. It must just be the sun, that's dimmed in his direction, nothing more.

* * *

It's still the same day when he finally catches up to him after losing him for a short while. He's out in the open, near some sort of abandoned plant that's such a typical stage for his battles. His brother watches him from a well enough distance, and wonders, how this will all play out.

He seems to have found his goal, and the Robot Master rampaging around it, and all looks well from where he is. But there is a warning buzzing in the air, and an unfriendly color hangs in the sky and clouds above. A weary look makes its way onto his face, and suddenly he knows exactly what's coming.

_"Do robots die?"_ For some reason, the question immediately comes to him as he watches a bolt of powerful lightning explode into the stormy sky. He remembers from the day it was first asked, not by him, but by the boy that he calls one of his younger siblings.

More electricity collects in the gray clouds, and he knows the hero is at a disadvantage now. His enemy pulls his strength from the electrical currents around him, including those buried within him, and if a thunderstorm truly breaks out as things are now, he may gain more power than his successor may be able to cope with.

His older brother feels the space around his heart tighten up. It's like he's suffocating, but he doesn't need to breathe, so that's impossible for him altogether. Still he knows he's trembling, because something is going horribly wrong here.

His brother thinks about his other sibling, his sister that he doesn't know as well as him but still cares about in his own way. His brother thinks about their father, and how important the little peace keeper is to everyone. No one expects him to fall, no one expects him to lose, because neither them nor the world could afford to do without him now.

_"Do robots die?"_ The question's back, again. It's back because the time, perhaps, has come for it to be answered. His brother isn't sure if he's ready to give it, or if the other is ready to hear it, but he can't sit in the shadows any longer. He has intervened a handful of times before, so this wouldn't really be that different – but things _are_ different here, and he can sense it. The sky was clouded this morning for a reason, as he sadly sees unfold now.

He is prepared to spring into the midst of that battle, hoping with all he can that that time he had so feared is not upon him quite yet (maybe he can avoid it, postpone it in some way). But suddenly there is a loud clap of thunder, that pierces his ears as he is unable to save himself from being momentarily paralyzed. The light illuminates the battlefield better than it had been before, and in a matter of seconds the strike of lightning is formed and descends at extreme speeds from the highest point amongst those smoky clouds.

His brother realizes in a flash that he is in the middle of it. He is standing, without time to move aside, and it will hit him, probably stronger than any attack his enemy could have mustered without help of it.

Terror shakes the wayward robot, and he isn't even conscious of his actions as his voice comes too caught between a hoarse call and a choked cry.

"No," He rasps, and he's already in the air. "_No_," He cries defiantly, and he's landed on the rugged platform with only a heartbeat's stagger.

"No!" He screams, and the entire world is painted white; then brown, as he hits the floor, and blue, as something else lands besides him. Finally it's all black, and he can no long keep himself conscious.

* * *

He wakes up to a world spinning in circles. He tries to stand up, from where he's been collapsed on the ground, and in a few heartbeats the world is sanding still again. He blinks and looks around him, and finds that there is no enemy left in sight. The clouds in the sky too have parted, and now all that's left is the tinniest veil of approaching darkness.

With this new sense of safety and security, his eyes fall on a shadowed shape, and he recognizes it without time at all to doubt it.

_"Do robots die?"_ He suddenly realizes he never wants to find out. He used to ask himself that at times, and then he'd gone and asked someone else about it, someone he looked up to and respected and saw in the ideal rival. But how had he ever expected them to answer it for him? They were probably as terrified of the truth behind it as he had been. He realized then that he didn't actually care about it, or not enough to want to pursue it. He was more than fine just not knowing.

_"One day you will know."_ It rings in his ears next, as he crouches over the shape of who he knows is his older brother. He had said that to him, instead of simply dismissing it as others might have, as he might have as well. He knew his brother would never be referring to his own death, so he'd always wondered what he'd meant with those words that had almost seemed to promise the coming of something predicted. Another thing that he came back to realize in those frantic few seconds, was that perhaps he was telling him more than he had understood; much, much more.

He notices the faintest of rustles, and his eyes grow wide with hope as he watches his brother's mouth open and a defeated voice come out of it.

"I guess… I'm on my way to find out, huh?"

His brother doesn't have to say it for him to know what he's talking about. It's like he could read his mind, read his expression –it was all in there, the dreadful thoughts that had been pounding at his head, like the nightmare that he could simply not wake up from.

But still he denies it, because this is not how he wanted his question to be answered. This is, as a matter of fact, the reason why he _never _wanted that question to be answered.

"No," It's him who whispers the word this time, weak and shaking with the feelings choking inside of him.

"It'll all be okay," The older brother says, a forced smile on his face that reminds him of those rare times when he would genuinely flash him a grin before disappearing it behind another perfect façade again.

_"This is not okay," _The boy wants to say, but he can't. There are no words that will come out of him now.

"'Do robots die?' Well, Rock, I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that one. But if they do, then I must be about to find out. I'll be somewhere else from now on, either way."

It seems like some forbidden words are being kept unspoken within his cracking voice, but if it was so then he quickly masks it by going on, whether it is or isn't what he had initially planned to make known:

"Take care of everyone, alright? I mean, it's not like you need someone to tell you how to be the great kid that you already are, but... You're just really important to this world, to everyone and everything in it. You keep a balance, between good and bad. You keep things flowing, as they should be. Remember that, because they will always need you, and always be grateful for you. Don't ever give up, no matter what. From today on, you won't need me as your shadow. And if robots do die, a bit like how humans do, then maybe I won't really be leaving you, and still watch over you, until the end of time."

He doesn't have the strength to do anything but listen to his brother speak his final words, but the gut feeling inside of him tells him that only if he keeps going can he stay with him for a little longer. But that there is the end of his voice, and it breaks away completely like shattered glass, as his body does the same thing.

His savior is still smiling when the color begins to drain of his face. He isn't sure what that means, because he isn't human, and he's never watched a robot like himself stop functioning forever like this. He thinks it's all so odd, and so mystifying. Machines stop working sometimes but they can be fixed back up again, they can be repaired, upgraded, and sustained. Yet something tells him that this robot will never be standing up or opening his eyes ever again. Is this more like the way people pass away, when their time finally comes and their body can no longer hold them?

Maybe he did die then. Maybe his brother has died today. Maybe he's been given the chance to die, not shut down like other machines do, but in a much different way, a bit like how humans do.

_"Do robots die?"_ The question is obviously still there. A part of him hopes more than anything that they do, that there's more to how his brother has fallen than the simple termination of a reasoning supercomputer. But there's a part of him that hopes he didn't, because then perhaps he could be brought back to his side, back to life. But after what has happened here today, what would it mean to have him again? Would it be the same him, if his once clear and vibrant personality has already faded and can never truly be retrieved?

The hero in blue armor takes one of his brother's hands, and tries to find in it the smallest trace of warmth. When none comes, he still isn't sure of the meaning of it, or what side of the argument it is supporting. He simply looks down, too broken to move at all. His duty is still to the world, as his brother had asked him in his dying words to stand true to, but he shall continue his battle tomorrow. There is no will left to fight today. And then there is the news of this, that he will have to carry throughout the rest of it, and back home eventually, like a burden of acid that slowly burns and melts his metal skin.

"Please take him to a place where I can see him again someday," He whispers his thoughts softly to no one in particular, for there is no one to address them with anyway. "Take him somewhere where he can still be, because this world knows he deserves more than to end like this."

And then that is the last, that was ever seen of his brother, of his friend, rival, and idol. Of the first, that gave origin to him and all those to follow. Of the defeated robot, who died as he had learned to live, believing in the better future that only his younger brother could help build.


End file.
